Most musicians have struggled with interval recognition at some point…

Sadly most give up, and relegate it to that part of our musical brains labelled “dull, difficult, music theory”.

What’s so great about intervals?

Meet two musicians:

Ask Musician A about intervals, and they tell you that intervals are just a “theory thing”. You learn how to spell them correctly with sharps and flats, and you get the general idea, and that’s that. You never really use intervals…

Ask Musician B though, and you hear a very different story – their eyes light up, and they tell you excitedly how intervals let them start understanding harmonies, and picking apart chords, how they could never play tunes by ear well until they really got intervals into their ear. They talk about intervals as a tool: a really useful part of their musical toolbox…

What’s interesting is this:

More often than not, Musician A is also the one who’s a bit frustrated in music. Who feels totally dependent on sheet music to be able to play anything. Who hasn’t really become the “natural musician” they wanted to be.

Musician B… they’re the one who seem relaxed in music, who can do things like work stuff out by ear seemingly effortlessly. They seem to understand music in a clear, concrete way and have control over it.

In a lot of ways, this is the general story of ear training and how it can empower you as a musician.

One of the most significant and useful aural skills you can learn with ear training is relative pitch.

And intervals are the building blocks of relative pitch.

We ♥ Intervals

Here at Easy Ear Training, we can certainly empathise with all of those who’ve got bored or frustrated with interval recognition. We’ve all been there!

And yet…

Intervals hold a special place in our heart!

RelativePitch was our first iPhone app, and the origin of the company – and it’s an interval training app. So learning to recognise intervals has always been a key part of the Easy Ear Training approach.

In fact, earlier this week our “Topic Tuesday” on Twitter and Facebook was in celebration of intervals and what they can do for you as a musician.

Through talking to music students who’ve used RelativePitch over the years or read up on interval training here on EasyEarTraining.com, we’ve learned some great ways to make learning intervals less painful, and more useful.

We’ve compiled all our best material on intervals into one: “Learning Intervals”, the second audio-enhanced eBook in our new “Greatest Hits” series.

Greatest Hits

This is the first book in our new Greatest Hits series, which collects the very best we publish here on EasyEarTraining.com, to create clear specialist guides on a range of ear training topics – in a handy, all-in-one, audio-enriched eBook.

You can download the eBooks in PDF or EPUB formats, meaning you can use them on your computer, Kindle, iPhone/iPad/iPod, other eBook readers, or even print out a copy for handy reference.

You can read, listen and learn in whatever way suits you best.

Is “Learning Intervals” for you?

If you want a good ear for music, you’ll need a strong sense of relative pitch, and intervals are one of the fundamental ways to improve your sense of relative pitch.

“Learning Intervals” is designed to offer new and useful material for both the absolute beginner, and the seasoned interval trainer.

It features 3 different methods for learning intervals, which you can combine to create your perfect personalised approach. It includes all the best tips we’ve picked up for learning intervals, and answers the #1 request music students have when learning intervals.

Here are some comments about the book we’ve had back so far:

It was a really nice and easy read to help me in ear training that was really scary before I read the book…

Thanks for the wonderful offering on Intervals. It’s introducing me to a new set of reference songs for interval recognition.

It provides in-line listening exercises, along with links to additional practice as well as insightful articles on music theory and musicianship in general. Plus, the book goes further than much material on the subject by providing guidance on how to incorporate interval study into one’s listening, playing, and composition.

LOVED the qualitative descriptions, info, categorization, analysis of consonance and dissonance. Very nice to have this info in one place, well-presented, and concise.

The reference songs chosen are great for a potential target audience for a book like this. (I’m probably a little older than your target demographic, but I like the idea of reaching out with pop tunes to more youthful generations. Nice job.)

Whatever your past experience with learning intervals, “Learning Intervals” can give you a fresh start and new ways to make your training really effective.